Zula serves up creative flatbreads and Mediterranean plates in its spacious Over-the-Rhine location

The latest addition to the growing
Over-the-Rhine dining landscape has been touted as a mix of wine bar and
Mediterranean tapas restaurant. Chef Tsvika Silberberg recently opened
Zula at 14th and Race streets...

The Elusive Cow offers pub grub everyone can feel good about

Right down the road from Virgil’s Café in
Bellevue is a newly opened (since November) neighborhood burger joint,
The Elusive Cow. Originally, I had heard that it was a vegan or
vegetarian pub, but one look at the menu made it clear: This restaurant
is much more than that.

Nothing screams artisan or handcrafted
food like a flannel-shirted, tattooed server. Remove the pageantry from
the building, please, and just give us the weird cuts of beef or spruced
up hot dog served alongside a Prohibition-era cocktail.

Aunt Flora serves old-school desserts and comfort food to the masses

The winner of CityBeat’s 2012 Sugar
Rush event was none other than Aunt Flora (Katrina Mincy) of the now
closed Aunt Flora’s House of Soul and the newly opened The Cobbleria
downtown. After winning everyone over with her peach cobbler, Flora
isn’t retiring the rolling pin anytime soon.

Mason surprises with new Malaysian dining experience

Malaysia is located so far from here most
of my friends couldn’t point it out on a map. But lucky for us, Ohio
just welcomed its first Malaysian restaurant right outside Cincinnati.
In the belly of an old municipal building in Mason is the new restaurant
Straits of Malacca.

Hamilton Avenue in Northside is home to a
slew of eclectic storefronts like Melt and Shake It Records, and, since
April, Northsiders have enjoyed The Listing Loon as a place to swing by
and load up on bottles of hand-selected microbrews by a couple of
Cincinnati’s tenured bartenders.

Today, gourmet dining is wheeled around in carts or prepared to
order in trucks. Local food vendor Jamie Williams jumped on the
bandwagon and launched Cincy Bag Ladies in the spring of 2012 with one
mission: Let people eat without plates.

The reopening of Maribelle’s could not
come any sooner. I was eager to see the old recipes I once gushed over
with friends as well as what the old tavern would look like juxtaposed
with the cavalier Boca across the street.

Strong's fire-breathing oven offers Italian delights

Do not be fooled by the quaint brick
building and steep steps that sit back off the street as you drive
toward Newport on the Levee on Monmouth Street; Strong’s Brick Oven
Pizzeria is not just another pizza joint.

Streetpops mixes modern design with vintage style, selling gourmet
popsicles made from scratch, using the freshest ingredients possible.
Owner Sara Bornick recently expanded business from box-cart vendor to
full storefront to accommodate her booming business.